Simon Cowell credits his happiness and priority shift to his son after getting him through a dark period of his life where “nothing mattered.”
The 64-year-old recalled the heartache of losing both of his parents, his mother, Julie, in 2015 and his father, Eric, in 1999.
“I think particularly when I lost my mum, I was on a downward spiral at that point. I lost everyone, you know, I’ve lost my parents. It’s finality now. What I said about the material things I’ve got, everything just meant nothing at that point.”
Mr. Cowell said being “desperately unhappy” is what led him to become so consumed with work, and despite not enjoying his work at the time, it’s what helped him cope with the loss.
“I would wake up at 2:00 or 3:00 in the afternoon and I actually got addicted to that kind of lifestyle. I just loved the intensity. It was almost like because of the loss I’d had, I’ve got to find something else to fill it. And it was I’m just going to be a ridiculous workaholic, and I was very successful but I wasn’t happy, I really, really wasn’t happy.”
It was when his now 10-year-old son, Eric, whom he named after his late father, was born that Mr. Cowell’s life began to take a turn. When he heard his fiancée Lauren Silverman was pregnant, it was what made him happy again.
“When I got the call from Lauren, which starts, any call that starts with, ‘Are you sitting down?’ You know what‘s coming next. It was like, ‘Are you sitting down?’ ‘Yes,’ ‘Well,’ and she told me. And yes it did absolutely change, it changed everything in my life. It made me happy again.”
The couple met in 2004, and he proposed to the 46-year-old socialite in 2022. Ms. Silverman has a son, Adam, who she shares with her ex-husband and real estate mogul, Andrew Silverman.
Meanwhile, Eric was born in 2014, and from that point, Mr. Cowell continues to take in each memorable moment and together enjoy similar experiences from his own childhood.
“For me, it was perfect because like we were talking earlier about our childhoods, it was brilliant. Fantastic. I remember the first time I watched Jungle Book [with him] and I’m looking over and seeing the joy he had watching that movie. It was like, oh my God I remember how I felt when I saw The Jungle Book.”
Mr. Cowell says Eric, without a doubt, “saved him,” adding that it was especially challenging being in the public eye while simultaneously struggling.
“It hit me so hard, the hardest thing also was being on television as well … I felt like a clown here because I’m dying inside, and yet I’ve still got to do what I’m being paid to do as best as I could but I’d put on a ton of weight, I was eating junk, if I had got hit by a bus the following day, well, I’d be dead, but I wasn’t worried about anything like that,” he said.
“I can absolutely relate to when people reach the lowest levels you possibly can, where essentially being alive doesn’t matter anymore, because you just go, ‘Well, what have I got to live for?’”
Aside from Eric, Mr. Cowell is also a strong proponent of therapy, adding that speaking about his own worries or troubles helped him in the long run.
“You feel great afterwards and you know, you think initially it’s going to be embarrassing, but they are so well trained at what they do, it just made me feel better ... stuff that used to bother me I would talk to them about. You almost get the answer you know it’s going to be, but someone needs to tell you other than yourself.”
Mr. Cowell is a long-time record producer, talent scout, and music industry executive. He is best known for being a judge on some of the most popular global television shows, including “America’s Got Talent,” “The X Factor,” “Britain’s Got Talent,” “Pop Idol,” and “American Idol.”
